Thursday, December 08, 2005

Phoning is for Peasants

If you have had anything to do with a nomination campaign – or any campaign – make sure you swallow any food or drink in your mouth before reading this jaw-dropper:

“One of the wonderful things about this experience is that I don’t think I made a phone call.” (emphasis added)
--Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore Liberal candidate), Toronto Star, December 7, 2005


As the author of Lesser Evils, his much-cited but apparently little-read book on the use of torture in the war on terror, Ignatieff deserves credit as a serious scholar who has come down from the ivory tower to apply ideals to real-world problems. But the foregoing quote suggests that he is naïve about the political process, and less than completely detached from his family’s history as Russian nobility.

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